Truth or Dare (41 page)

Light streamed at Caitlin as her eyelids slowly fluttered open. She could hear voices above her, cloudy and hushed, and she wrenched her eyes open a little more, blinking as the world came into focus.

“Caitlin!” Tenley rushed to her side, relief etched across her face. “You’re awake, thank god.”

“What’s going on?” Caitlin asked groggily. Her head was throbbing and the struggle to sit up made her feel as if she were wading through mud.

“Don’t,” Tenley said quickly, putting a hand on her shoulder to ease her back down. “The doctors said you shouldn’t move too much.”

Caitlin let out a soft moan as she turned her head to look at Tenley. But she fell abruptly silent when she saw the person standing next to her.
“Sydney?”

Sydney had her hands in her pockets, her eyes fixed on the floor. Her shaggy bangs were strewn messily across her forehead, making it hard to see her face. “Hey,” she said.

Caitlin tried to sit up again, but Tenley kept a firm hand on her shoulder, making it impossible. “Doctor’s orders, Cait,” she said. “You’ve been out for hours. They think you have a concussion.” She studied Caitlin, looking concerned. “You passed out in the cafeteria. Hit your head pretty badly.”

Caitlin closed her eyes as memories rose out of the darkness, slowly taking shape. “With about half the school watching,” she groaned.

“You won the election, at least!” Tenley cheered in an extra-peppy voice. Tenley took her hand off Caitlin’s shoulder and gently smoothed down her hair. “Sydney’s here because it’s over, Cait,” she said quietly. “Truth or dare. It’s finally done.”

Caitlin looked up sharply, making the room—a hospital room—spin around her. “You mean…?”

Tenley nodded. “When the ambulance came to school to get you, there was a cop there, too. Officer Hamilton.” She was quiet for a second, playing with a strand of Caitlin’s hair. “He recognized me, and when he asked if we ever got our questions answered… I started talking and I just couldn’t stop. I got Sydney, and we ended up telling him everything.”

Tenley’s eyes met Caitlin’s. “He searched Joey’s locker, and we were right, Cait. He found this whole bag of stuff in there, all related to the dares. One of those terrible campaign posters about you, some of Sydney’s photos, several rolls of unused film, a couple of notes typed in that typewriter font, even the dance ribbon I thought I’d lost. And there was other stuff, too. Your file from Dr. Filstone. A couple of printed-out e-mails from my friend Lila in Nevada. That’s how he
knew so much about us, Cait. And there was… there was something else.” Tenley fidgeted.

“It was that green notebook he’s always carrying around,” Sydney filled in. She crossed her arms as though she was cold. “Apparently it was this whole graphic novel he’s been drawing, featuring people from school. And you were the main character.”

Caitlin blew out a shaky breath. Those times she’d felt Joey watching her, studying her, as though he was trying to see inside her… it hadn’t been her imagination.

“There was a letter on the last page of the notebook, addressed to the three of us,” Sydney went on. “It made it pretty clear that he was planning to try to hurt us.”

“But it’s okay, Cait,” Tenley said quickly. “They arrested him. It’s finally over.” She squeezed Caitlin’s hand and Caitlin closed her eyes, trying to process it all. It was over. It was really, truly over.

“He can’t hurt us anymore,” Sydney added softly.

“Visiting hour is ending, girls,” a nurse said brightly as she walked into the room, carrying a tray of food. “Let’s give our lovely lady here some time to rest.”

“Can I stay for just a little longer?” Tenley asked hopefully, smiling sweetly up at the nurse. “I’m her best friend.”

“They always are,” the nurse replied dryly. “But rules are rules. Unless you’re one of her parents, you’ve got to go.” Tenley cocked her head, looking for a second as if she might try to claim she was Caitlin’s very young stepmom. But then she let out a reluctant sigh, standing up.

“Call me as soon as you’re home,” she told Caitlin. “And remember: It’s over now, okay?”

Caitlin nodded. “It’s over,” she repeated. She kept saying it in her head, again and again, trying to believe it. It was really over.

“Feel better, Caitlin,” Sydney said. She paused next to her bed. “And if you need anything… even just to talk.” She looked down, twisting a gold band on her pointer finger. “I think I’d understand.”

Caitlin smiled at her. “Thank you,” she said softly.

The nurse waited until Tenley and Sydney had both left before placing the tray on a small table next to Caitlin’s bed. “That’s better, nice and quiet,” she said. “Now I want you to eat this whole meal, and then take a little nap. We want to get your blood pressure back up to normal, so your parents can come back to take you home.”

“Come back?” Caitlin asked. She reached up to rub her head. “Were they here?”

The nurse laughed. “Oh, yes. They’ve been here all afternoon, keeping vigil at your side. Stayed even when all your friends from school came by, crowding up the room. They only left a few minutes ago to take care of your paperwork.” The nurse shook her head. “That mom of yours is very strong-willed, isn’t she?”

Caitlin let out a weak laugh. “That’s a nice way to put it.” She tried to imagine her parents skipping out on work in the middle of the day to sit next to her bed while she slept, but she just couldn’t fathom it.

“Make sure to eat,” the nurse reminded her as she headed back into the hall. “We need your strength back up!”

After she left, Caitlin really looked around for the first time, taking in the room. The last time she was in a hospital had been after the kidnapping, when they ran tests on her to make sure everything was okay. This room looked pretty much the same: white walls, white bedding, white curtains. The only difference was a colorful quilt draped over a chair in the corner that reminded her of the one her mom kept in her studio. Caitlin narrowed her eyes as she studied it. That didn’t just look like her mom’s quilt, she realized. It
was
her mom’s quilt. She shook her
head, unable to keep from laughing. Only her mom would think to redecorate a hospital room.

The laughter brought a shooting pain to her head and she closed her eyes for a second, waiting for it to pass. Once it did, she turned to face the tray of food the nurse had left. It didn’t exactly look gourmet—a plastic-wrapped peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, a carton of apple juice, and a cup of vanilla pudding, her least favorite flavor. But her stomach was growling loudly and she was under strict orders by the nurse to eat.

Maybe it was because she was starving, but the sandwich actually tasted surprisingly good, and she found herself tearing through it. She just couldn’t believe she was in the hospital, eating hospital food. How had she let things get so out of control? She moved on to the pudding cup, spooning it up hungrily.

It didn’t matter. It was like Tenley said: It was over now. And not just the dares, but everything. She was done with the pills. She was done with the panic. It was her senior year; she was going to find a way to
enjoy
it. An image of Tim popped into her mind and she smiled to herself. Maybe that wouldn’t be so hard.

A drop of pudding splashed onto her arm, and she reached for the napkin to mop it up. As she did, a tiny slip of paper floated out from within its folds, landing on top of her tray. She lifted it up, confused. It was one of the fortunes from Winslow’s Fish-a-Fortune booth at the Festival.
Sometimes a reluctant friend is an enemy in camouflage
, she read.

“How did
that
get in there?” she said out loud. She brought the fortune closer to her, studying it. Under the hospital’s bright fluorescent lights, she noticed a faint outline of words, typed onto the back.

Almost like a note.

Her breath caught in her throat. It couldn’t be. They’d arrested
Joey. It was over. But her hands were shaking as she flipped the fortune to the other side.

There, in an old-fashioned typewriter font, was a message.

Come to the Justice at midnight tonight, if you want to know the truth.

Caitlin closed her eyes. She opened them again. The words were still there.

“No,” she whispered. But still the words refused to vanish.

Tenley had been wrong. It wasn’t even close to over.

Monday, 7:23
PM

DINNER EES SERVED!” SYDNEY’S MOM CALLED OUT IN
a terrible fake French accent.

“You sound like a cowboy on helium, Mom,” Sydney called back, laughing, as she started for the kitchen. For the first time in over a week she felt almost relaxed, like her old self again. She still ached whenever she thought of Guinness, but knowing that the dares were over made her feel as though a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. Life could finally go back to normal, which meant she could concentrate on the things that really mattered: getting accepted into the Rhode Island School of Design, for starters.

This afternoon, when she’d found out once and for all that Joey was the darer, it had made everything seem clearer, sharper—as if after days of blurriness she’d finally put on glasses.

She was full of so much buzzing energy, she’d gone to Echo Boulevard to photograph the last few hours of the FESTivities. It was there, with her camera pressed up against her eye, that she’d finally come up
with a title for the RISD essay she’d been struggling with. “Down the Rabbit Hole,” she would call it. Because that’s what photography had been for her this week, had been for her always: an escape during the darkest of times, to a place where reality couldn’t touch her.

Sydney was smiling as she walked into the kitchen. A lot had ended for her this past week—her dad, Guinness—but a lot was beginning, too.

“Whoa,” she said when she saw the kitchen table. It was set with their nicest dishes, a fresh bouquet of daisies sitting in the center. She couldn’t remember the last time her mom had made dinner, never mind set the table. Sydney looked closer. She’d even cooked Sydney’s all-time favorite: spaghetti squash in tomato sauce, with soy meatballs. “What did I do to deserve this?” she asked, dropping down in her seat.

For a second she tensed, wondering if this was her mom’s way of getting her to spend another whole night discussing the fire she’d started in the sink. They’d already spent hours talking about it Friday night, with Sydney steering wildly around her mom’s questions. In the end, she’d managed to keep the truth about the dares and her dad to herself, but after a thousand and one questions, she’d finally broken down and told her mom she was fighting with Guinness. She’d kept the details vague, but still it had surprised her how good it felt to talk about it, to have her mom hold her tight and promise everything would be okay. But that didn’t mean she was ready for round two.

Besides, she was done with fire. For real this time. It was time for Sydney Morgan to start fresh. An image of Calum popped into her mind, taking her by surprise. Sydney quickly pushed it away. She wasn’t ready to start
that
fresh.

“I know I haven’t been the best mother this summer, Syd,” her mom said. “Working all hours of the night…” Sydney tried to protest,
but her mom forged on. “No, really. You’ve been fending for yourself more than you should have to, and I guess this is my way of saying I’m sorry.” She sat down across from Sydney, spooning spaghetti squash onto both of their plates. “Soon Marianne will be back from maternity leave, and I’ll be back to being a real mom again.”

She added several soyballs to Sydney’s plate, but wrinkled her nose as she skipped her own. Her mom wasn’t a huge fan of meat substitutes.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, swallowing down a forkful. Sydney couldn’t believe how relieved she was. She hadn’t admitted to herself just how much she’d missed having her mom around this summer. “This is great. Really.”

“Well, what apology is complete without spaghetti squash?” Her mom took a big bite, trying to mask her distaste with a loud “Mmm.”

Sydney laughed. “There’s a frozen pizza in the freezer if you want to eat that instead.”

“No, no,” her mom said bravely, fixing her bright, turquoise-blue eyes on Sydney. “I’m going to eat squash with my daughter.”

As they ate, her mom told her about her latest patient, a woman named Margot who insisted that everything she touched
must
be green. “She only wears green clothes,” she told Sydney with a chuckle. “All the way down to her underwear. Believe me, I’ve seen them.”

Sydney laughed as she powered through her fifth soyball. “Maybe she’s really a leprechaun,” she suggested. She knew they were dancing around the important topics, but she was glad. It was just so nice to have a normal dinner with a normal conversation with a normal mom who was actually home before the sun set.

After she’d finished her second helping and her mom had finished the “side” of pizza she’d added to her plate, Sydney took over cleanup
duty. “I can help,” her mom offered, but Sydney refused. It had always been a rule in their house: Whenever someone cooked a real dinner, they didn’t have to clean. And Sydney wanted things to be just like they used to—as if this whole past week hadn’t happened.

Her mom sorted through the mail as Sydney stuck the plates into the dishwasher. “Bill,” she sang out, turning it into a song. “Bill, bill, bill.”

“I think you missed your calling as a pop star, Mom,” Sydney quipped as she cleared the last of the dishes from the table.

“Such a shame. Oh, I forgot about this.” She pulled an envelope out of the stack of mail. “Someone left it in our mailbox for you a few minutes before you got home. I think you have a secret admirer,” she added, wiggling her eyebrows. “I was tempted to open it myself, but don’t worry, I’m not that kind of mom.” She tossed the envelope to Sydney. “They did the whole ring-the-doorbell-and-run thing, too. Very romantic.”

Sydney felt numb as she looked down at the envelope. It was plain and white, with her name typed across the front in typewriter font.

“No,” she whispered.